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Saturday, September 10, 2011

In previous Septembers, Devils center Travis Zajac would have been back in New Jersey already, skating and getting ready for the start of training camp.

When the team’s veterans take their training camp physicals a week from today at Prudential Center, however, Zajac will still be in Winnipeg recovering from Aug. 18 surgery to repair a torn left Achilles tendon.

“It hasn’t really sunk in too much yet that I won’t be there for camp and I won’t be around for exhibition (games) and even the start of the season,” Zajac said this afternoon in his first interview since he was injured. “I think once I get to Jersey and see some guys playing then it will be a lot tougher. That I’m away from it now is probably a good thing because I know if I was around the rink right now I would probably be pushing myself to do something and trying to get back quicker than I probably should.”

At this point, the timeframe for Zajac’s return is still uncertain.

On the day he had the surgery, Devils general manager Lou Lamoriello said Zajac’s recovery would take three months. Since then, the 26-year-old Winnipeg native has talked to other players who had Achilles injuries to get an idea of the road that’s ahead of him and got differing stories. For some, the three-month estimate was about right. Others needed four to six months.

“It depends on the athlete and the person, but from guys I’ve talked to with the injury that (three months) seems like a reasonable timeframe for some guys and some guys were a little longer,” Zajac said. “Hopefully, if things progress well (he’ll be back in three months). I was told it’s the rehab that is the key part that’s going to get you back the quickest.”

Among the players Zajac said he spoke with was Vancouver Canucks defenseman Kevin Bieksa, who had an Achilles injury in 2009-10 and missed three and a half months.

“I was just trying to get a head start and see what I’m going to have to do, what worked best for them,” he said. “Hopefully, that can help me too.”

From his conversations, Zajac knows it’s a possible that his recovery could fall into the four to six-month range and is prepared for that. What he doesn’t want to do is risk a setback by trying to come back before he’s ready.

“It depends on how hard I push it and how my body reacts to everything,” he said. “From what I hear, that (taking four to six months) could happen, but, hopefully, I’m on the lower end of the time frame. We’ll see. I’m definitely not going to rush back and ruin the rest of the year by coming back too early.”

So, though Zajac would love to be back in time for the team’s Dec. 3 game in Winnipeg, he’s not going to risk jeopardizing the rest of his season. It would be his first time playing an NHL game in his hometown after the Atlanta Thrashers moved to Winnipeg this off-season and reclaimed the Jets name. (The Devils also play in Winnipeg on Jan. 14).

“That would be a great time to come back, but I want to make sure I’m healthy,” he said. “The worst thing to do would be to come back too soon and take a step backwards.”

Zajac tore his Achilles on Aug. 17 while doing plyometric exercises as part of his off-ice summer training and underwent surgery the next day in Winnipeg. He said he had no problems with his Achilles before that.

“I was just doing some plyometrics I’ve been doing for most of my life training and all the sudden just felt a pain,” he said. “I just went to step and I couldn’t put any pressure on my leg. It was weird feeling. I knew something wrong.”

Zajac still isn’t sure exactly how his Achilles tore.

“It was just straight up and down jumps we were doing,” he said. “I don’t even know if I landed wrong. It was just kind of freak injury. I don’t know if something was off in my leg for some reason and it just put too much stress on my Achilles for whatever reason.”

Although a ruptured Achilles would have been far worse (Vancouver’s Sami Salo took six and half months to return from an Achilles rupture last season), when Zajac got the diagnosis that his Achilles was torn, he was still “pretty upset.” He hasn’t missed a game since a bruised thigh kept him out of Oct. 24, 2006 contest in Pittsburgh (during his rookie season) – a streak of 401 consecutive regular season games that is a Devils’ record.

“I’ve been fortunate to be pretty healthy for most of my career,” Zajac said. “I always try to take care of myself, but it was just something that happened and as upsetting as it was I just have to work on getting back and work on a few things and, hopefully, come back even stronger.”

Zajac downplayed the significance of having his consecutive games steak halted, but admitted the streak was something he was proud of.

“It’s not the end of the world that I won’t be able to play every game,” he said. “But it was just something I prided myself in, being able to be a durable player and to be able to play in all the games and I think it had a lot to do with how I take care of myself and train and rest. It was a tough time to get an injury, but it happens to everyone.

“For whatever reason, it just happened now.”

Zajac had to wear a cast on his left ankle for the first week following his surgery and since then has been in a walking boot, which he said he will have to wear for four to six weeks total. He’s already been in the boot for more than two weeks and is scheduled to see the doctor again in Winnipeg in about a week and a half.

Depending on how that examination goes, he might get out of the boot then and be able to return to New Jersey shortly after that to start his rehab.

“I’ll probably have more of a game plan after that (doctor’s appointment) for rehab and stuff like that,” Zajac said. “I think (he’ll start with) a little swimming and something that doesn’t put too much pressure on my ankle and try to build that up every day. I’m sure there will be a lot of calf and ankle mobility exercises and stuff strengthening the Achilles back to where it needs to be.”

In the meantime, his Devils’ teammates will have to start the season without him. Zajac had been looking forward to playing for new head coach Pete DeBoer and, like his teammates, was motivated to have a better first half to this season and rebound from missing the playoffs for the first time since 1995-96.

“It definitely would have been an exciting year to start off with everybody coming back healthy and with a little attitude of not having what happened last year happen to us again,” Zajac said. “It would have been fun to come back and prove something to not only the rest of the teams but to ourselves that we are a good team and deserve to be in the playoffs every year. I definitely wanted to have that chance to start off the year with the group of guys we’ve got.”

Zajac believes the team will be able to start the season well without him, though.

“We have a lot of good players, young player too coming up who deserve to be on that team and will work hard to fill spots,” he said. “Zach (Parise) is coming back healthy and (Ilya Kovalchuk) is going to get better and we’ve got some good young defensemen. I just see our team getting stronger and stronger as the year will go on and I think we’ll be an exciting team to watch.”

***

Zajac said the news of Wednesday’s plane crash in Russia that killed all but one member of Lokomotiv Yaroslavl that was on board “made me sick to my stomach.”

Among those killed were former Devils Alexander Vasyunov and Karel Rachunek.

“It was terrible to see, especially guys that you’ve played with,” Zajac said.

Zajac said he didn’t know the 23-year-old Vasyunov, who played 18 games for the Devils last season, that well.

“He was a kid who worked hard and, obviously, loved the game and played with passion,” Zajac said. “It’s upsetting to see stuff like that happen.”

About

TOM GULITTI has covered the New Jersey Devils for The Record since 2002. Prior to that, he covered the New York Rangers for four years. Gulitti joined The Record in 1998 after six years at The North Jersey Herald News. He graduated from Binghamton University in 1991 with a Bachelor of Arts in Rhetoric-Literature.